STAGE REVIEW : An Evening of Funny Stories From Betty Garrett

Let’s invite Betty Garrett over for Thanksgiving dinner. At least, that’s what many of those listening to “No Dogs or Actors Allowed,” a compendium of anecdotes gleaned from Garrett’s 50 years in show business, would like to do.

She has a stock of stories up her sleeve, and she knows how to tell them. Yet she doesn’t appear to be the type of guest who would dominate the conversation at everyone else’s expense.

True, this solo show at the Pasadena Playhouse Balcony Theatre (following a workshop run at Theatre West) does go on a bit too long at two hours. But that’s because Garrett is not at someone’s dinner table--she’s in front of a paying audience. Professional that she is, she’s going to give those people their money’s worth, and then some.

It’s her material and her manner that lead you to believe she would be a poised conversationalist at the dinner table, as well as a skilled storyteller in a theater. In her selection of stories, she skips very lightly over her personal triumphs and tragedies.

Instead, she tells us what went wrong during this performance, what happened after that one. She discusses her days as a showgirl in addition to her more illustrious assignments in high culture.

When she makes a passing reference to the days of the blacklist, which so affected her and her late husband, Larry Parks, it’s not a story about the grim events themselves but rather a tale about an odd personal encounter she and Parks had with Sen. Joseph McCarthy in Las Vegas.

And that’s about as dark as this show gets. Generally the mishaps and embarrassments she relates are far from shattering. They’re the incidents about which people say, “Years later, we’ll look back and laugh.” Well, here we are years later, looking back and laughing.

The manner of the telling is also extremely unaffected. This is not a polished piece of performance art. Several times during the evening, Garrett retreats to the side of the stage to check her notes. Occasionally she’ll cap an anecdote with the exclamation: “Isn’t that a wonderful story?” Her clothes are stylish but casual. There isn’t a shred of pretense here--it’s just an evening of funny stories.

Some are definitely funnier than others. Some are marginal and would be cut by a more severe taskmaster than Garrett’s director and co-author, John Carter. But no director should do anything to stifle Garrett’s crinkly voice or her unassuming personality.

The production seems almost as simple as Garrett’s stories until the second half, when a wall of masks (designers: Andrew Parks and Cynthia Gates Fujikawa) appears at the back of the stage. It not only refers to the audience, during a sequence of audience stories, but it also begins to simulate a set described in one of the show’s earliest tales, about Orson Welles’ staging of “Danton’s Death”--Garrett’s first professional outing. It therefore provides a touch of visual unity for a show that’s otherwise randomly organized.

Furthermore, the wall of masks is an effect that would be hard to manage around the Thanksgiving dinner table. If you like this sort of thing, don’t wait for the holidays.

At 39 S. El Molino Ave . , Pasadena, Tuesday through Friday at 8:30 p.m., Saturdays at 5:30 and 8:30 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m., through July 23. Tickets: $22; (818) 356-PLAY.